Preserving the sounds of Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and other theme parks around the world.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

In The Beginning.....

They say that starting something big takes a first step. Well, here it is.

So let's start with the 4 W's (and an H while we are at it).

WHOam I?

That's easy. I am a HUGE Disneyland fan. I pretty much grew up on the streets of Disneyland, was honored to meet nearly all of the main Disney Imagineers and Animators, became a Disneyland Cast Member and later was a Cast Member Lead for the Disney Store.

After my time with Disneyland, I got into the world of broadcasting and began covering Disneyland as press.

For many years I wrote Mouse Rap Monthly, a monthly fanzine for Disney fans, and later produced Disneyana TV, a subscription video.

My most recent Disney project was the Magical Theme Park Podcast, a show that I stopped producing so that I could begin to develop a special podcast project with Disney. Unfortunately, Disney Online could not get the budget they had hoped for and the project never took off. But I was very honored to have been the one picked to produce and voice the production

Today I live in Seattle, working in television production. And, needless to say, I miss Disneyland terribly.

WHATis the Theme Park Audio Archives?

Long before the Internet became what it is today, my friend Rick West and I began collecting and trading Disneyland Audio. It was nearly a secret society, a small group of Disney enthusiasts trading rare tracks back and fourth on cassette tape. It was a VERY special time that I will never forget.

Since then I have continued to collect and hold tightly onto my collection of Disney park audio which also includes tracks from Six Flag's Magic Mountain and Knott's Berry Farm.

For a long time those tapes sat in a box in the garage. And then a few years ago I decided to get them out and begin restoring them. I am still working on it and I can't tell you how much fun it has been.

And then I had a thought......why not share these with other enthusiasts just like myself. Why not start a society of theme park enthusiasts and create a place for them to share and collect these special pieces of audio, helping to build their own archives. And that's why I am starting this new adventure.

WHEN will this actually start?

I won't lie to you, I am pretty busy with several projects, a great family, a job I love and a puppet company that has just gone public (check it out at http://www.madpuppetlab.com/). So this will definitely be a hobby.

But it will be one I am very serious about. So while I won't have a regular schedule for this project, I will continue to work on it and build on it and make it a special place for you. But I hope you will get involved too!

WHEREwill this take place?

That was a good question that I have been pondering all year. To make it simple, I thought it was best to put everything here at Blogger.com. For now at least, this is where the fun will take place.

Howwill it work?I think this is what has delayed this project for so long. I have seen many soundtrack websites come and go, mostly because of people just downloading all of the tracks and not contributing. I put a lot of thought into this and here is what I finally came up with.

Soundtracks will be released here with a download URL. This URL will work for a limited amount of time. But, while the link will eventually break, the listing will stay up. Why? Because people will be able to trade their tracks for those listed. This will start the trading. Tracks traded to us will eventually find their way on the site where we can all download them.

With that said, we also hope people will contribute their tracks openly and often. This won't work without you.

What You Can Do.........In the meantime, you can join in the fun by registering for your free account to our blog (yes, EVERYTHING is free). This will give you total access to read and reply to what you find here. As a matter of fact, reply now and let us know if you have any ideas! Things will take off a bit slow but I know we will soon have more people here than we can handle.